I think America has gotten away from justice and has been primarily focusing on revenge. The death penalty is a primary example. What is actually being accomplished with it other than creating a method of revenge for the family's of violent crime? A positive change would be for America to make more of an effort to give psychological and spiritual help to those in the prison and jail systems.
In a person's path to adulthood, they should be trained (by parents, teachers, and/or clergy if a person is raised in a religion) to obey the law... to not kill, to not steal, to not vandalize, to not assault and batter... etc..
When they do what is unlawful for them to do, they must be punished. It is not a prison's job to teach criminals that murder is wrong. They know it's wrong and commit murder anyway, assuming or hoping they won't get caught.
They don't want to get caught because getting caught means having your property and freedom (and in some states, life) taken away from you.
If you believe that we shouldn't punish criminals, that's your opinion and you are entitled to it. Just remember that if someone brutally murders one of your loved ones, hopefully someone will give them a significant talking to about what went wrong in their life, about who they should forgive for screwing up their childhood, and to go along not murdering anyone anymore.
How is imprisonment any less revenge to you than death itself?
The dictionary defines revenge as "to inflict punishment".
If it is wrong to punish criminals... why call anything a crime?
What, to your mind, is the right thing to do to people who commit murder?
Should we legalize it?
Live according to a principle of "survival of the fittest"?
Or how about fate? Someone gets stabbed in the throat 7 times after being raped and otherwise tortured.... I guess that someone must have had it coming.. it was just his time.
How does that sound?